The invention relates to an electrical cable connector (plug) with a connector box, electrical contacts, to which electrical conductors of a cable can be connected, and a strain relief device clasping a clamp that annularly surrounds the cable and that can be tightly pressed against the cable by screwing a clamp sleeve on a thread designed at the rear end of the connector box.
Cable connectors that are also called xe2x80x9cfree connectorsxe2x80x9d are mounted onto an electrical cable in order to electrically connect the cable, by means of a plug-and-socket connection, for example with an electrical device or with another cable. Such cable connectors have become known in the most varied forms. Besides the xe2x80x9cstraight connectorsxe2x80x9d, in which the plugging direction, the connector box, and the cable leaving the connector all lie in one axis, there also exist xe2x80x9cangle connectorsxe2x80x9d, whose box consists of two sections, the longitudinal axes of which are mutually oriented at a right angle, wherein the cable connected to such connector leaves the connector at an angle or at right angle. Straight connectors and angle connectors are normally offered as alternatives, and depending on the available space, the electrical cable can be connected to a straight connector or to an angle connector.
Such connectors are known, for example, from DE 199 21 132 C1, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,989,340 and 5,205,749.
Connectors that can be alternatively used as angle connectors or straight connectors are known from DE 82 28 161 U1 and DE 89 06 957 U1. The boxes of these connectors are divided into a front section and a rear section, wherein the rear section can be oriented at various angles in relation to the front section.
Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 4,671,598 discloses an angle connector comprising an angle-box part consisting of a front section and a rear section, whose axes run at angle to each other, wherein the rear section consists of several shells, while each of them form a portion of the compact perimeter of the angle-box part with the shells in collapsed condition. In the area of its rear end, each shell comprises a perimeter portion of an external thread, wherein these perimeter portions form a complete external thread, when the shells are in their collapsed condition.
One task of the invention is to provide a cable connector of the initially described type that can be easily converted from a straight connector into an angle connector and vice versa. Another task of the invention is to provide a cable connector of the initially described type that can be converted from a straight connector into an angle connector and vice versa, while a cable is connected to it.
According to this invention, this task is resolved by a connector demonstrating the characteristics of patent claim 1. Such connector according to this invention can be converted from a straight connector into an angle connector and vice versa with a few simple operations, doing so without having to disconnect the cable from the connector that is already connected to its electrical contacts. If, for example, the connector was wired as a straight connector, the conversion into an angle connector is performed by unscrewing the clamp sleeve, shifting the clamp sleeve and the clamp back alongside the cable, putting the shells of the angle-box part on the rear-side thread of the box part, mutually connecting them, and screwing the clamp sleeve on the rear-end thread of the angle-box part.
In an advantageous design variant, the angle-box part consists of two half-shells that are screwed together by a bolt. As a principle, it is thinkable and possible too, to design the angle-box part to consist from more than two shells, for example from three shells, each of which comprising one third of the perimeter of the angle-box part. Instead of or in addition to a bolt, also other connecting elements can be designed to connect the shells; for example, this connection could be designed as a pure snap-on connection or a self-locking connection, or one or several clamping rings could be designed to surround the assembled shells on the outer side.